Uber Tip-Skimming Allegations Could Spark National Class Action 167
curtwoodward writes "Uber has just raised a monster investment round that valued the company at some $3.5 billion. And it looks like some of that cash will have to be earmarked for more legal expenses. The startup, which offers an easy-to-use mobile app for hailing "black car" sedans and other rides, is being sued in federal court over allegations that it's illegally skimming the tips paid to drivers. The lawsuit also claims that Uber is misclassifying its drivers as contractors, rather than employees. The upshot: If the federal judge certifies this as a national class action, Uber could be facing millions of dollars in potential damages. Oh, and the lawyer behind it? She's made a career out of suing companies for exactly these kind of violations."
We need more unions / workers rights (Score:5, Informative)
Way to many companies are misclassifying there works as contractors or pushing them off to subs and yet controlling them like employees. So they can get it both ways of the control of employees with out the costs / responsibility's of having employees.
Re:How is that an "upshot"? (Score:2, Informative)
Well duh, that's because the lawyer has done an awful lot of work contacting 1000 people, getting their stories, getting their testimony, collating all this information, and building a case. Building a legal case where you have only 1 or 2 people to talk to to figure out what was going on is hard enough, consider how much effort it needs when you need to contact thousands, and you can't use a for loop.
Add to that that these cases are generally far more risky than normal cases, as they're far easier to pick apart by the defence team, or to slowly chop away groups of people as being ineligible, and you get to a point where you see that actually, it's pretty reasonable for the lawyer to expect a decent return on their risk.
The bottom line though is that if you think that you could do this cheaper, and pass on more to the clients, and less to yourself, then you're welcome to do that. The fact that there are [b]lots[/b] of lawyers out there, and that it's a highly competitive market, yet none of them think that they can actually do that should tell you something about the situation.
Hahaha, I wish you were joking, seriously, I've been a member of maybe 20-30 different classes over the last 30 years or so and not once have I or any other member of a class that I've known ever been contacted by a lawyer for testimony. There's a notification letter and an award letter, that's it.